Hot on the heels of reviewing Nelson Freire’s latest album, Brasileiro, I was rummaging through the discount piano music bin at Remenyi’s this morning and found Volume 2 of the collected piano works of Darius Milhaud at 30 per cent off (the Durand edition of 2009).

John Terauds, the founder of Musical Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

It contains a gorgeous suite of 10 Brazilian dances that seduced me as I sight-read my way through this afternoon. This is fluff, but really well-written fluff. Milhaud was a pianist, so everything falls easily to hand. And, because this is Milhaud, the music is tonally as slippery and in-your-face as a marble floor after a wine spill.

Milhaud (1892-1974) couldn’t serve in World War I because of a medical exemption. Instead, he found work as a propaganda attaché for the French ministry of foreign affairs and ended up in Rio de Janeiro in February, 1917. By the time he returned home to Paris exactly two years later, he had many new loves, including the rhythms of Brazil.

The set of 10 pieces is one of the offspring of this love affair. The suite is called Saudades do Brasil, published as Op. 67. According to the foreword in the book, the pieces were premiered by Nininha Velloso Guerra at a Groupe des six concert in Paris, in November of 1920.

John Terauds, the founder of Musical Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

Datebook

Ludwig Van

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John Terauds, the founder of Musical Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

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Datebook

Ludwig Van

Listen Up

Shen Yun | Snow Capped Celebration

John Terauds, the founder of Musical Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.